


Ambrosia

by Kiar



Series: Undertale Beginnings [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: ENTIRELY FLUFF, Fluff, ketchup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 02:39:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11545752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiar/pseuds/Kiar
Summary: A short little piece about Sans rediscovering his love of ketchup. This is all just a bit of silly fluff.This scene takes place in the middle of Chapter 12 of Bare Bones, when the skeleton bros visit Grillby's for the first time. You can probably read it on its own, but without context a couple references might be lost on you.Enjoy!





	Ambrosia

Sans tried not to choke on his burger as he chuckled at his brother’s reaction. Papyrus was silently fuming at Sans’s latest joke, taking his annoyance out on his own hamburger by attempting to eat it in as few bites as possible. Sans suspected this might actually be an attempt for Papyrus to cover his smile, but decided not to say so.

Sans couldn’t stop looking around as he ate. He could still barely believe this was happening. He was surrounded by monsters - hell, he was _skeleton,_ \- the bartender was made of literal fire, and he and Paps were eating burgers like it was just another Tuesday afternoon. Sans laughed at the absurdity of it all, and his brother paused to give him a curious look.

“WHAT IS IT, SANS?”

Sans still hadn’t quite adjusted to his brother’s new volume. It was strange how he sounded the same and different all at once. But, Sans supposed, the same could be said about himself.

“nothing, bro,” Sans shook his head. “just a little slap-happy I guess.”

His brother hummed. “IS THAT ALL? YOU SEEM A LITTLE DISTRACTED.”

 _Heh, wasn’t that the truth_. “distracted?” Sans repeated. “whaddaya mean?”

Papyrus pointed towards his brother’s plate, where Sans’s burger lay with only a couple bites taken out of it. “YOU’VE EATEN LESS THAN _ME_.”

“what, you’ve got some _beef_ with that?” Sans teased. “come on, bro, we’ve had them for, like, thirty seconds.”

But Papyrus had a point. It wasn’t that Sans wasn’t hungry - in fact he thought eating something might help with his weariness. But if he were being honest, the burger was just kind of… bland. Not that it didn’t have good flavor, but more in the sense that it was difficult for him to taste it. Like with the blackberries that Papyrus had collected, it was as if Sans’s tastebuds (or, whatever functioned as his tastebuds now,) were dulled. At least the blackberries had been tart - maybe that made them easier to taste - but the hamburger was amounting to little more than texture for Sans.

A glass clinked against the wood as it was set down on the bar before him. Sans blinked and looked up; there was a red bottle next to his plate. Grillby nodded towards it.

“...You asked for extra.”

“oh.” Sans said, slow to remember his request. “oh! yeah, thanks.”

The fire monster nodded once more and went back to his work. Sans’s boney fingers tapped against the glass as he spun the bottle around to examine the label, which was completely blank save for the word, “Ketchup.” Sans idly wondered where it had come from (did Grillby make it or buy it? Where did one get ketchup in a giant underground cavern?) but was quickly distracted by his growling stomach.

“want any?” Sans asked, wiggling the bottle at his brother. Papyrus (who was eating his burger with one hand so as to keep the other grease-free,) looked skeptical.

“I DO NOT THINK SO. IT WOULD TAKE TOO MUCH EFFORT TO DISASSEMBLE AND REASSEMBLE THE SANDWICH.”

“you could always dump some on your plate,” Sans said, tipping the bottle in demonstration. “and then dip the burg into it.” Sans applied a liberal coating of ketchup to the side of his hamburger.

Papyrus was appalled. “BROTHER! THAT IS _NOT_ HOW YOU EAT A HAMBURGER!”

“what? why not?” Sans raised a brow. “you dip french fries in ketchup. why’s a burg gotta be different?” He took a bite to drive his point home. Sans chewed once, twice, and…

Stopped.

“OH NO!” Papyrus cried, seeing his brother frozen mid-bite. “YOUR COMPLETE LACK OF TABLE MANNERS HAVE STUNNED EVEN YOURSELF!”

On a normal occasion Sans wouldn’t have let Papyrus’s mockery stand and would have immediately quipped something back. As it stood, however, Sans was too caught up in the moment to reply.

He could _taste_ it. He could actually taste it. The sweet-and-sour tang cut sharply through the dull flavor of the bread and meat. True, it was maybe a little bit more muted than normal, but it was intrinsically, undeniably… ketchup.

And it tasted like home.

It tasted like summer afternoons, lounging outside while the grill smoked and friends chatted nearby. It tasted like early mornings when Papyrus was cooking and in a particularly good mood, filling the kitchen with the heady scent of sausage, pancakes, and hashbrowns. It tasted like eating hotdogs down by the lake. It tasted like childhood, sitting in front of the TV with a plate full of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.

It tasted like all of that and a hundred other moments besides.

Sans swallowed. The flavor was so familiar. It was so comforting, and so utterly unexpected. Papyrus must have noticed the distant look on Sans’s face, for he’d stopped his teasing.

“SANS, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”

Sans nodded slowly. “i was just thinking,” he said, setting his burger down in exchange for the bottle of ketchup. It didn’t look like the stuff they’d had back home, but there was no mistaking the taste. “you suppose it would be a complete breach of etiquette to just drink straight from the bottle?”

Papyrus spluttered, the non sequitur catching him so off guard that he was apparently unable to string together a single coherent sentence.

“WHAT? SANS! YOU- YOU ABSOLUTELY _CANNOT_ DRINK FROM- GOOD LORD, SANS, THAT’S DISGUSTING! I CAN’T BELIEVE- TO EVEN _SUGGEST_ SUCH A THING-”

Sans had set the ketchup back down as he was overcome with a fit of belly-shaking laughter. This seemed to upset Papyrus even further, and he slammed his fist down on the bar to emphasize his point.

“SANS! THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER! I CAN FORGIVE LAZINESS, BUT SUCH TABLE MANNERS ABSOLUTELY CANNOT STAND!”

“don’t worry, bro,” Sans said, still shaking from chuckles as he wiped a magical blue tear from the corner of his eye. “i’m just pullin’ your leg. i’d never drink straight from the bottle.”

 _Well,_ Sans considered, giving the ketchup a sideways glance. _Not while Papyrus was looking, at least._

**Author's Note:**

> The way that walnuts taste like Christmas, and rain sounds like Summer, and my mother's homemade bread smells like sitting by the hearth, a bowl of black-bean soup cupped in my hands as I thaw the winter chill from my bones…


End file.
